


Little Green Wheels

by loveinadoorway



Series: Want an axe to break the ice [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt, M/M, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:57:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is it getting dark in here, or is it me?<br/>In the aftermath of S3.2, I got this sick feeling.... his behaviour was... off.</p><p>More stuff from when Sherlock was abroad to when he meets John, filling the gap between Home Fires and the rest.</p><p>Title and quote from David Bowie's Ashes To Ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Green Wheels

_Time and again I tell myself_  
 _I'll stay clean tonight_  
 _But the little green wheels are following me_  
 _Oh no, not again_  
 _I'm stuck with a valuable friend_  
 _"I'm happy, hope you're happy too"_  
 _One flash of light but no smoking pistol_

That?  
Oh yes, that.  
That had happened after Bucharest. Predictably so, of course.

He looked at the syringe, trying to keep his face blank, trying not to show how much he needed it, even though there was nobody there to witness his descent.

He had thought he could have just that one meltdown. With a different substance. That surely would not be a problem, would it now?  
For such a smart man, he appeared to be very stupid at times.

At times like when he talks to Mycroft on the phone and his insufferable brother tells him in his most priggish voice that John not only had met a girl, but was also already cohabitating with her. Only at those times does he get a little stupid and…

He drew the golden liquid up, slowly filling the syringe. He had heard a song once that called it the girl with golden eyes. Yes, well, no, not a girl, not his cup of tea.

He had thought heroin wouldn’t be his cup of tea, either. Not his drug of choice, of course, but it had been all he could find in Romania.

It actually was the perfect John substitute. It provided a firm, warm, glowing wall between him and the constant influx of data, the constant, incomprehensible, social demands people made of him, the loud, insistent babble of the world.  
It provided something like the calm that John once gave him, the eye of the hurricane.

Finding a vein was still very easy, even though some had collapsed already and he had to work harder and harder at finding veins where the track marks wouldn’t immediately betray his new passion.

He had already had bad withdrawal symptoms, when Mycroft had shown up in prison and had taken him home. Luckily enough, those were easily explained away by the general state he had been in at the time and an unsuspecting driver had supplied the much needed detour to where he could score before the long journey home.

Riding on Mycroft’s planes, trains and automobiles meant not being stopped and searched at any border, smooth sailing through any rough waters and complete avoidance of the pitfalls of addict transportation.

By the time he had arrived in London, he knew he was hooked so thoroughly that he would not be able to stop shooting up by himself anymore. If that had indeed even been an option right from the start.

Seeing John tonight had been horrible. He had dosed his pre-meeting fix carefully, not wanting to appear high, just be calm enough to go through with it. He had, however, nonetheless never felt so much like a fish out of water. The strategy he had come up with in the Carpathians had failed miserably; his attempt at lightening up the situation hadn’t gone down the way he had planned at all.

And she had been there.  
He had not been prepared to like her. That had been the worst blow of all. She was nice, had seemed smart and genuinely in love with John. Not that Sherlock was an expert in spotting THAT, of course.

And that ridiculous mustache. What had that man been thinking? John looked like a depressed terrier with that thing.  
And Sherlock still had never wanted anyone or anything as much in his entirely life as he wanted John.

John, whom he could no longer have. John, whom he had lost trying to do the right thing. John, who could never know.

He should have shot up properly before he went there. It had been ridiculous to still expect a happy homecoming. He should have been prepared. Should have prepared himself.

The smack was starting to work its magic. Soon, none of that would matter all that much anymore. Soon, he would close his eyes and invent his own reality, his own happy ending.

He didn’t need his mind palace anymore. A mind version of 221b Baker Street, where John was sitting in his armchair, waiting for Sherlock to come over and let himself be embraced was good enough now. Of course, the only thing that would be embracing him from here on out would be his Persian.  
And this embrace would be there, waiting for him, for as long as he had enough money.

Honest trade.

Comfortably numb was the best thing he could hope for now. 


End file.
